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If Mozilla hadn’t already made a strong case for its web-based social VR platform, Hubs, to become one of the best places to meet up in a headset, this latest update certainly helps.

Hubs, which launched in beta back in April, now has video, image and 3D model sharing. True, many social VR platforms boast these features, but in Hubs all you need to do is copy and paste the URL of the media you want to share and it will appear in the virtual space, just like on the wider web.

If you want to share a YouTube video, for example, it will appear as a virtual window inside the 3D world, and anyone in your room can watch it. Impressiely, you can do the same with 3D models from Sketchfab or Google’s Poly to seamlessly import creations into the space for others to inspect.

Elsewhere, Hubs is also adding support for documents and files saved on your PC, so you could share a piece of work together, for example. Only the people in your room will be able to see this and Mozilla says it will delete the files once you’re out of the space.

This is the first full feature update for Hubs, but Mozilla says more is coming.

Valve released an update for Steam on Linux that should allow some of the most popular VR games to run on VR-ready computers without Microsoft Windows installed.

The new feature could hold enormous potential for Valve to support next generation standalone VR headsets based on Linux or SteamOS. In the near-term, the feature could also lower the cost for some early adopters who want to enjoy top tier games like Doom VFR, Google Earth VR and Beat Saber but don’t feel like shelling out the cost for a Windows 10 license alongside their shiny new VR-ready PC. It might also have an effect on VR arcades which could bypass the cost of Microsoft’s operating system.

The new feature is described as follows: “Windows games with no Linux version currently available can now be installed and run directly from the Linux Steam client, complete with native Steamworks and OpenVR support.”

According to a blog post detailing the update, the feature works through an update to an effort announced in 2010 called Steam Play. According to Valve, an open source tool called Wine they’ve been supporting is responsible for much of the effort thus far in bringing Linux support to Steam’s back catalog.

“Proton, the tool that Steam Play uses to provide Windows compatibility, contains a custom version of Wine as well as additional libraries developed alongside it. It’s fully open-source,” the post reads.

If you’re a Linux user and test this out, please let us know in the comments what it is like. The Valve blog post linked above includes instructions for setting this up with the latest beta version of Steam on Linux.

A scientific program is utilizing VR technology to help recent amputees accept prosthetic limbs. According to research, approximately 60-80% of amputees experience a case of “phantom limb syndrome” at some point following their amputation. An uncomfortable, sometimes painful case, those affected feel as though they still have control of their “ghost” limb and may even

You won’t find much VR gaming on the public showfloor at Gamescom this year, but you might stumble across one heck of a VR party.

Tucked away behind gigantic booths for PS4’s Spider-Man and others is a stand half as big and twice as loud as its rivals. Location-based VR company Hologate is showing off its four-player VR arcade set up with a new game announced today, Holobeat. I’ll give you three guesses what it’s like based on that name.

Yep, Holobeat is an unashamed Beat Saber clone. You still hold a set of red and blue lightsabers and you still swipe away at notes in certain directions as they arrive in time with a beat. In fact, I was certain the game actually was Beat Games’ VR sensation when I first came across it. Aside from some spruced up visuals, which are noticeably sharper than busier than Beat Saber’s there really seemed to be no difference at all.

That is except for the multiplayer.

Up to four friends can pull on a Vive to compete in Holobeat. Whichever headset you choose you’ll see your rivals positioned either side of you and right above in levels that resemble a tube. You’re competing for high scores, though your friends won’t have any affect on you while you’re in the middle of a song.

It would have been nice to see some new ideas implemented into the multiplayer, but the support is still appreciated. High-score chasing invites repeated plays, and I could easily see myself bringing friends along to try the experience with me instead of getting them to pass the headset at home.

Still, as VR clones go, it is a little too close to home. Even the intro at the start tells you to “swipe the beat with your saber”. When you’re not even attempting to disguise the source material you’re aping — which admittedly owes a debt to Star Wars itself — it can come off as a little disrespectful. It’s like if Epic had called Fortnite PlayerKnown’s Battlegrounds. You have to try and be a bit subtle at least.

Not least because Hologate is also capable of some genuinely fun VR experiences of its own design. I also played a VR zombie shooter from the company with a rifle-shaped peripheral that was a lot of fun. It just made me wish this had some level of its own identity.

Other than that? Well it plays really well, and the mapping of notes was on-point. I got the exact same momentary feeling of being a dance/Jedi master that’s made Beat Saber so popular seconds before I’d mess it all up and find it impossible to keep up.

Hologate told me that the game will have six songs to choose from as it rolls out across the company’s locations starting next month, with more to come. With both multiplayer updates and an arcade version of Beat Saber itself on the way

Population: One is the latest upcoming VR battle royale game, this time from BigBox VR, the same developers behind Smashbox Arena, which is a hybrid of dodgeball and a first-person shooter with a whimsical, bright visual style. Population: One is very much not that game.

In Population: One you compete against other players to be the last-man standing, as expected, but what’s unique about it compared to other VR battle royale game is just how ambitious its gameplay mechanics seem to be. You can of course run around, shoot, and even climb things like Virtual Battlegrounds and Stand Out, but you can also build things like in Fortnite and even glide around the massive one-square-kilometer map with a jetpack. It’s got a futuristic tone, which is a stark contrast to the typical post-apocalypse we’re used to seeing.

We’ve nearly reached peak battle royale saturation in the VR market and headsets haven’t even been out for three years yet. In a way, it’s kind of impressive.

The grim-dark, semi-realistic future setting is an interesting choice given BigBox VR’s prior game, but it’s kind of working for me. It looks really polished for a game that’s still in Private Beta testing and I’m eager to see how it feels to play.

On the website the developers have detailed what they call a “FreeMotion” movement system that’s been tested similar to how the UK Royal Air Force studies pilots, supposedly, but it’s unclear exactly what that means. It just says they’ve “developed advanced technologies that allow players to freely move in Virtual Reality without limits or discomfort” which sounds like something we’ve heard a time or two by now.

Another point worth noting is that the website also mentions “Single Player Missions” where you can practice your skills against AI robots and drones — something we don’t see much in the genre at all, VR or otherwise.

The real test for Population: One, as is the case with all multiplayer-focused VR titles, will be whether or not it can sustain its player base. Rec Room doesn’t have trouble because it’s cross-platform between PC and PSVR and is totally free and Stand Out, Pavlov, and Onward have been around for multiple years to grow their base of players. It seems to have the ambitious and creativity, we’ll just have to see if the quality of the gameplay is up to snuff too.

Population: One is currently accepting applications for Closed Beta testing over on the official website and is targeting a 2019 release for Rift, Vive, and Windows VR. Let us know what you think of this new challenger in the VR battle royale arena down in the comments below!

Wireless VR heads to the Vive and Vive Pro this September starting at $300. HTC has at long last announced the Vive Wireless Adapter, a wireless add-on that delivers unrestricted freedom-of-movement to both Vive and Vive Pro VR headsets. Powered by Intel® WiGig, the official adapter is capable of delivering up to 2.5 hours of